T-Shirts & More
Order men's and women's T-Shirts, Sweatshirts, Aprons, Mugs, Caps, Tote Bags, Flasks, and more, all imprinted with the Pitmaster Club logo. There's even a spiral bound journal where you can make notes on your cooks.

Cool Embroidered Shirt
This beautifully embroidered shirt is the same one Meathead wears in public and on TV. It's wash and wear and doesn't need ironing (really!), but it is a soft cottonlike feel. Choice of four colors and both men's and women's.

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SPOTLIGHT

Some Of Our Favorite
Tools And Toys

Surely you know somebody who loves outdoor cooking who deserves a gift for the holidays, birthday, anniversary, or just for being wonderful. There he is, right in the mirror! Here are our selections of best ideas, all Platinum or Gold Medalists, listed by price.

If you have a Weber Kettle, you need the Slow 'N' Sear

Bring The Heat With Broil King Signet's Dual Tube Burners

The Broil King Signet 320 is a modestly priced, 3-burner gas grill that packs a lot of value and power under the hood. Broil King's proprietary, dual-tube burners get hot fast and are able to achieve high, searing temps that rival most comparatively priced gas grills. The quality cast aluminum housing carries a Limited Lifetime Warranty.

The Good-One Is A Superb Grill And A Superb Smoker All In One

The Good-One Open Range is a charcoal grill with an offset smoke chamber attached. It is dramatically different from a traditional offset smoker. The grill sits low in front and doubles as a firebox for the smoke chamber which is spliced on above and behind so it can work like a horizontal offset smoker only better. By placing the heat source behind and under the smokebox instead of off to the side, Open Range produces even temperature from left to right, something almost impossible to achieve with a standard barrel shaped offset.

Griddle And Deep Fryer All In One

The flat top does the burgers and the fryer does the fries. Use the griddle for bacon, eggs, and home fries. Or pancakes, fajitas, grilled cheese, you name it. Why stink up the house deep frying and spatter all over? Do your fried chicken and calamari outside. Blackstone's Rangetop Combo With Deep Fryer does it all. Plus it has a built in cutting board, garbage bag holder, and paper towel holder. An additional work table on the left side provides plenty of counter space.

The Pit Barrel Cooker May Be Too Easy

The PBC has a rabid cult following for good reason. It is absolutely positively without a doubt the best bargain on a smoker in the world. Period. This baby will cook circles around the cheap offset sideways barrel smokers in the hardware stores because temperature control is so much easier. Best of all, it is only 9 delivered to your door!

The Swiss Army Knife Of Thermometers

The smart folks at ThermoWorks have finally done it: The Swiss Army Knife of thermometers, two in one. Start with the industry standard food thermometer, the Thermapen MK4, (Platinum Medal winner) truly instant (2 to 3 seconds) precise (+ or – 0.7°F). Then they built in an infrared thermometer ideal for measuring the temps of pizza stones, griddles, and frying pans (also great for finding leaks around doors and windows in your house).

The Cool Kettle With The Hinged Hood We Always Wanted

Their NK22CK-C Charcoal Kettle Grill puts a few spins on the familiar kettle design. In fact, the hinged lid with a handle on the front, spins in a rotary motion 180 degrees. It's hard to beat a Weber kettle, but Napoleon holds its own and adds some unique features to make the NK22CK-C a viable alternative.

G&F Suede Welder's Gloves

Heat Resistant Gloves With Extra Long Sleeves Hold The Hot Stuff

If you're using oven mitts at the grill, it's time to trade up. Say hello to these suede welder's gloves. They're heat resistant enough to handle hot grill grates, and flexible enough to handle tongs. The extra long sleeves even let you reach deep into the firebox to move hot logs without getting burned. Our Fave.

GrillGrates Take Gas Grills To The Infrared Zone

GrillGrates(TM) amplify heat, prevent flareups, make flipping foods easier, keep small foods from committing suicide, kill hotspots, are easier to clean, flip over to make a fine griddle, and can be easily removed and moved from one grill to another. You can even throw wood chips, pellets, or sawdust between the rails and deliver a quick burst of smoke to whatever is above. Every gas grill needs them.

Our Favorite Backyard Smoker

The amazing Karubecue is the most innovative smoker in the world. The quality of meat from this machine is astonishing. At its crux is a patented firebox that burns logs above the cooking chamber and sucks heat and extremely clean blue smoke into the thermostat controlled oven. It is our favorite smoker, period.

Masterbuilt MPS 340/G ThermoTemp XL Propane Smoker

The First Propane Smoker With A Thermostat Makes This Baby Foolproof

Set ThermoTemp's dial from 175° to 350°F and the thermostat inside will adjust the burner just like an indoor kitchen oven. All you need to do is add wood to the tray above the burner to start smokin'.

Professional Steakhouse Knife Set

Our founder, Meathead, wanted the same steak knives used by steakhouses such as Peter Luger, Smith & Wollensky, Morton's, Kobe Club, Palm, and many others. So he located the manufacturer and had them stamp our name on some. They boast pointed, temper-ground, serrated, high-carbon stainless-steel, half-tang blades with excellent cutting edge ability. The beefy hardwood handle provides a comfortable grip secured by three hefty rivets. He has machine washed his more than 100 times. They have never rusted and they stay shiny without polishing. Please note that we do not make, sell, or distribute these knives, they just engrave them with our name.

Is This Superb Charcoal Grill A Kamado Killer?

The PK-360, with 360 square inches of cooking space, this rust free, cast aluminum charcoal grill is durable and easy to use. Four-way venting means it's easy to set up for two zone cooking with more control than single vent Kamado grills. It is much easier to set up for 2-zone cooking than any round kamado. Beautifully designed and completely portable. Meathead says it is his preferrred grill.

Finally, A Great Portable Pellet Smoker

Green Mountain's portable Davy Crockett Pellet Smoker is one mean tailgating and picnic machine. But it's also gaining popularity with people who want to add a small, set it and forget it pellet smoker to their backyard arsenal. And with their WiFi capabilities you can control and monitor Davy Crocket from your smart phone or laptop.

Instant Pot: How to use jarred braising sauce?

December 7th, 2018, 12:00 PM

Sometimes when Williams-Sonoma has sales I'll pick up some of their braising sauces for quick lazy meals. I usually cook them in a dutch oven but my wife just brought home a 6qt Instant Pot. So now I want to try to cook it up in that.

Did a little research and found that WS also sells similar sauces made for pressure cookers but they have poor reviews (sauce burned etc.)

The plan is to brown 3 lbs of chuck & veggies to go with the sauce. The jar has 2.75 cups of liquid and instructions call for adding 1.5 cups water to dutch oven/slow cooker. Any advice here on cook times and how much water to add?

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I don't have the Instant Pot - I have the Breville competition. For the Breville, searing works great. I've seen people talk about using the Saute (I think) setting on the IP with good results. Guess you'll just have to try it out!

Searing works fine on the IP. Set it to sauté and let it heat for a few minutes and then add oil and the meat and sear away. Then deglaze with the sauce add back the meat and set it up to pressure cook it. The amount of time would be based on what you are cooking. If you cube up the chuck to about 1-2 inch cubes it should take around 30 min on high pressure. I don’t know how long it would take if you left the roast whole.

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I did a little digging on why pre-made sauces burn in the IP. It sounds like a crapshoot because if the sauce is too thick, or there's ingredients like corn starch or tomatoes it can scorch.

Looks like you need a minimum of 1 cup thin liquid to build pressure. So now I'm thinking pot-in-pot method. Insert water under the steam rack then put a 7x3 cake pan or Pyrex glass bowl with the meat, veggies and (un-diluted) sauce on top of the rack.

I make a LOT of beef stew in the ole instant pot. I'm thinking for the last two years we have had beef stew at least once a month or more. I'll plop my recipe down below just for fun and comparison.

There are a few "key" things to learn with the Instant pot. You can brown in it just fine. Actually, it works great! Just make sure you totally deglaze afterwards. You don't want anything stuck on the bottom once you start your cook. If there is anything still stuck on the pot, sometimes it will fool the thing into thinking that something is burning. How the hell it knows this I have no idea but it does.

Start with the liquid that you want to end up with. There is no boiling off of the liquid so what you start with, you will likely end up with a tad more.

I don't use jared gravies, but I would not be scared to give it a go. your meat and veggies will have a LOT of juices that will mix in and thin it out in the end.

Stir it all well before you put on the lid, poke everything down below the gravy, have "JUST" enough gravy to cover everything. I'll bet it comes out great.

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Thanks for the recipe, I'll give it a try next time. Johnny's slow cooker sauce is something I'll probably have to order but it sounds good.

Turns out you were right, I should've just put the sauce in the inner pot - maybe add 1/4 cup water to play it safe. The pot-in-pot thing didn't work out, it was undercooked after 45min and the steam added water to it anyway. Also, I had to do veggies in a separate batch due to limited space in the 2qt container I used. At that point I removed all the water and dumped everything else in the inner pot and cooked for another 20 min. Nothing burned on the bottom and the end result was fine, the William's Sonoma sauce was really good.

I was pleased with the searing as it browned the chuckies nicely. I thought I had a defective unit because after 5 min warm up on max heat saute I was only seeing around 130 degrees.

I haven't had much success with PIP (pot in a pot with the IP) unless I lengthen the cooking times. I like to make quickie meals with frozen chicken breasts or thighs (only if I haven't had the time to defrost them) and jarred Indian sauces, like Sharwood's Butter Chicken Sauce. Turns out that most jarred sauces are way too thick to allow the IP to come up to pressure properly, and the sauce burns on the bottom of the pot. Besides, you end up boiling/braising the food for the programmed cooking time if the IP doesn't actually come up to pressure.

So now I add about 1.5 cups of broth or water (preferably home made chicken broth) to the chicken and the sauce. This thins the sauce enough for it to cook properly in the IP. Stir well. Cook on High Pressure for 20 minutes if the meat is frozen and 10 minutes if it is not. I usually add par-cooked potatoes to the pot before cooking.I let it do the Natural Pressure Release for about 10-15 minutes. If the sauce needs thickening, I add a roux. I'm a roux kind of gal anyway. Love the stuff.

Kathryn

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My user manual says to use a minimum of 2.25 cups of water/thin liquid to make the thing work. However, a food blogger went on IP's Facebook page and cornered a rep on this. Their response was "about a cup will do unless your cooking an absorbent food."

The sauce I used was reasonably watery. My next cook will be pork butt with their 'Apple Cider Sage' sauce. I'll estimate how much water is in it and add enough to ensure I have at least a cup.

Just an update I cooked a 3.25 pound pork butt with Williams-Sonoma "Apple Cider Sage" braising sauce. After browning the meat I deglazed with white wine. When there was about 2 ounces remaining I placed the butt in whole then dumped the sauce on top. High pressure for about 45 minutes and it came out great - fork tender, stupid simple.

I noticed with their Instant Pot starter sauces either water or broth is the #1 ingredient, while those are further down the list in their braising sauces.

I bought a couple IP cook books at Costco and one author often doesn't use any water or broth in her recipes. Gets it from the meat and small amounts of soy sauce or ACV etc. The other author mentioned you can get pressure with as little as a few tablespoons of water. She recommends if a sauce looks too thick putting a little water at the bottom, then the meat and sauce last. And by the way, both of these books were approved by Instant Pot.

Finally, I read a tip on the internet from a guy who uses thick sauces. He said he gets the machine hot first by using the slow cooker function then switches to pressure. By doing this it coaxes the sauce and pressure builds faster. I think he used SC high then LP.

I have the Breville, and use rick Bayless slow cooker sauces with about half to a quarter of the additional liquid requested on the sack or sauce. Because there’s no evap you don’t want too much liquid in there. And because of the format, reducing in the thing is maddeningly slow.

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About this website. AmazingRibs.com is all about the science of barbecue, grilling, and outdoor cooking, with great BBQ recipes, tips on technique, and unbiased equipment reviews. Learn how to set up your grills and smokers properly, the thermodynamics of what happens when heat hits meat, as well as hundreds of excellent tested recipes including all the classics: Baby back ribs, spareribs, pulled pork, beef brisket, burgers, chicken, smoked turkey, lamb, steaks, barbecue sauces, spice rubs, and side dishes, with the world's best buying guide to barbecue smokers, grills, accessories, and thermometers, edited by Meathead.

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